I don't spend a lot of time lurking around, leaving comments on other people's websites. I feel a little guilty saying that, but it's true. I think this is why I am never tagged for memes. Which is fine, because the pressure of responding to them is just too much for lazy Lisa. Doing it of my own free will is, of course, a breeze. So, here are 10 things about me which not a lot of people know:
1. I had my first encounter with an Ice Cream Truck at the age of 15. Growing up in the country, I had no idea such a thing even existed. Needless to say, my friends thought this was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard of.
2. It is my plan to become a well-paid and popular, if quirky, writer one of these days. One the reasons for this is that I love wearing pajamas. My main motivating factor, upon waking, and besides making money, is to get to a point of the day where I can once again be wearing pajamas. It is my plan to show up at book signings in pajamas, hence the quirky part. They will be nice pajamas, of course, I have a vast and thorough pajama collection. I once met a news writer who told me his infatuation with writing began once he heard writers could (and frequently did) drink all the time. I, on the other hand, am excited to get paid to sit in my pajamas drinking coffee all day and holding a revolving selection of sleeping cats.
3. My mother was one of those urban legends to have a pressure cooker explode in her kitchen. This was very traumatic for me when I was little, and to this day I view the pressure cooker with nothing but fear and trepidation.
4. My first culinary specialty was Sloppy Joe's. I saw this as an opportunity to showcase my amazing improvisation skills by lining up the contents of the spice rack and adding each one with a dash and a flourish. I've often wondered, as an adult, if they were any good or not. As a 9-year-old, they were heaven.
5. My first real food epiphany came from the Japanese Steakhouse. It was there that I learned that stir-frying is one of the best ways to prepare food, and it was there I learned to love onions, zucchini, mushrooms and mung bean sprouts.
6. My father's family has the definitive Amish recipe for apple butter in Central Ohio, and we own 2 enormous copper-lined cauldrons for making it.
7. I hate cilantro.
8. As a child, I was allergic/intolerant to the following products: chocolate, eggs, tomatoes, citric acid, citrus fruits, artificial colors and artificial flavoring. Failure to eat within these guidelines resulted in what I like to call "Allergy Head," whereby I was even more pallid then usual, highlighted by dark circles under my eyes. I looked like a shiny, skinny panda bear. You can imagine what a hoot my birthday parties were. Oh, wait, I didn't have any.
9. I have sliced roughly a million bananas for dehydrating purposes. For about a 4 year period when I was a child, my mother dehydrated anything that would sit still for 24-36 hours. I had one childhood friend who refused to spend anymore nights at my house if it meant getting up at 7 on Saturday morning and slicing 80 pounds of bananas before we were allowed to play dress-up.
10. I was such a beer snob (after turning 21, of course!) that I reached the age of 24 before ever tasting an average domestic beer such as Bud Light. This does not, of course, include sips of Coors stolen from the plastic cups of my parent's sailing buddies as a child. Back then, Coors was as exotic as Saison is now, and known only to sophisticated, Colorado types.
So there you have it. Now we're Best Friends.
